Voice of the People

Voice of the People

February 12, 2008

What is life?

This is in response to "Scientists poised to create life; Researchers say they're one step away from 1st man-made organism" (Page 1, Jan. 25). It is interesting that scientists are excited when they create a bacterium and call it life, but they destroy an embryo with a beating heart and say it is not.

-- Hope Traill, Rockford

Death penalty

The slaying of five women at the Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park is why Illinois needs to use the death penalty. Most death penalty opponents do not realize that the vast majority of those who kill do not even qualify for the death penalty.

But a man who shoots down five women in a store for his own financial gain needs to be put to death.

The death penalty never has been required and its requirements cannot be met by the majority of murderers. Let the citizens of Illinois express their outrage at such a horrible act. Let Illinois courts have the option of the death penalty.

This is concerning Steve Chapman's "Terrorists can't make the Big 1" (Commentary, Feb. 7) and the presentation by Ohio State University professor John Mueller that it refers to. Mueller convincingly documented the difficulties of non-state entities producing a working bomb. But creating a successful dirty bomb with stolen fissile materials or stolen bombs is much less difficult. In 1941 one could have said the same about the Japanese. The odds were one in a million that they could plan and rehearse an attack, leave port with a huge armada and approach Hawaii without detection. Beyond that, the Japanese would not even contemplate such a thing because it was irrational, even suicidal, to provoke the United States by attacking its Pacific fleet.

I hope that this column and Mueller won't persuade our intelligence and security agencies to close down or reduce their vigilance.